World ‘Game Over.’ Iraqi Forces See Beginning of the End for ISIS

12:50 07 october 2017

12:50 07 october 2017 Source:
The New York Times

Iraqi military captures Hawija from Islamic State

Iraqi forces have captured the town of Hawija and the surrounding area from Islamic State, the military said in a statement on Thursday. With the capture of Hawija, the militants' last stronghold in northern Iraq, the only area that remains under control of Islamic State in Iraq is a stretch alongside the western border with Syria. Hawija is close to the oil-city of Kirkuk.The offensive on Hawija was carried out by U.S.-backed Iraqi government troops and Iranian-trained and armed Shi'ite paramilitary groups known as Popular Mobilisation.

Celebrations break out in Hawija, where U.S.-backed forces drove ISIS from its last major urban stronghold in Iraq . “ Game over ,” said Gen. Sabah al-Aboda of the Iraqi police, as he chewed a date in the shade of a collapsed storefront.

See Kurds Celebrate After Victory Is Declared Over ISIS in Kobani. “It’s not the beginning of the end in any schematic way.” The positive news from the frontlines in Iraq is that ISIS has been contained and is no longer Indeed it has lost ground to Kurdish and other Iraqi forces in marginal areas.

A Shiite militia fighter praying on a road outside Hawija on Friday, a day after Iraqi forces retook the city from Islamic State militants.

HAWIJA, Iraq — The jubilant outpouring that erupted in the heart of Hawija on Friday, the day after Iraqi forces claimed victory there, celebrated more than the fact that the Islamic State militants had finally been routed from the city, their last major urban stronghold in Iraq.

Iraq recovers bodies of plane crew shot down by IS

Iraqi forces have found the bodies of two of the crew of a plane shot down by the Islamic State group last year, the air force said on Tuesday. The Cessna 208 Caravan was downed over the northern town of Hawija, a former jihadist bastion which was retaken by government forces last week."The bodies of two of the crew killed in the crash of their Cessna Caravan in Hawija in March 2016 have been found," the air force said.

Expected victory by Iraqi forces will signal beginning of the end for militants in Iraq . By Derek Stoffel, CBC News. "Obviously we have skin in the game ," said Prof. Momani of the University of Waterloo. As ISIS territory shrinks, Momani sees another threat.

We are seeing not only a shift in the dynamic and the momentum of the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS ; it is quite possibly the beginning of the end for the group as a state-based actor.

For many of the Shiite Muslim militiamen, who sped through the streets in pickups, flying militia colors and blaring religious music on loudspeakers, and the federal paramilitary police, who feasted on mutton and rice, their swift two-week victory represented the beginning of the end for militants who just three years ago ruled a third of Iraq.

“Game over,” said Gen. Sabah al-Aboda of the Iraqi police, as he chewed a date in the shade of a collapsed storefront. “When they lost Mosul, they were broken.”

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General Aboda and other officers said the militants had been badly led and poorly supplied since they were driven from Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, after a punishing nine-month battle that ended in July. They lost some of their best commanders and cadres, the commanders said, and their supply lines to Syria were cut by Iraqi forces.

U.S.-Led Forces Clear ISIS From Much of Iraq

At least 95 percent of territory previously held by the terrorist group have been reclaimed, a U.S. general says.At least 95 percent of the territory in Iraq that was previously controlled by Islamic State group forces has been cleared and some have even mentioned surrender as Iraqi Security Forces and U.S.-led coalition forces move closer to the complete liberation of the country, a U.S. commanding general in Iraq said Thursday.

"If handled successfully, Mosul could mark the beginning of the end of the Islamic State; if In short, even if Iraqi forces manage to win the battle against ISIS in Mosul, they're in danger of losing the "We, the civilized people of Mosul, don't want to hand our city over , after liberation, to the tribes or to

Fall of Raqqa and Mosul will not spell the end for Isis . 28/40. Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah.

Beyond that, officers and soldiers said, hundreds of militants never fired a shot in the Hawija operation. Following their commanders’ orders, they fled north with their families to surrender to Kurdish forces, they said.

But others stayed and fought, the troops said. Most were killed, though some escaped and a few were taken prisoner, according to General Aboda.

On Friday, corpses of several militants lay where they had fallen, some with weapons still at their side. Downtown Hawija, the site of the heaviest fighting, was a jumble of collapsed walls and crushed storefronts.

Kareem Gita, a Shiite militiaman who commanded a checkpoint in the shattered city center Friday, said many militants had lost the will to fight.

A handful of militants remained holed up in the city on Friday, General Aboda said. He said Iraqi forces were searching for them as engineering teams worked to clear streets and buildings of roadside bombs and booby traps.

ISIS fighters holed up in Raqqa believed to have women, children to use as human shields

The heart of Raqqa is shattered, but progress to root out the last of ISIS fighters is grindingly slowOn the front line, U.S.-backed Syrian militiamen decided to put on a show for the camera. ISIS gunmen are hiding in the ruins of a nearby apartment building, they said, but it looked more like boredom than real fighting. Progress here is grindingly slow.

× These Reports Signal The Beginning Of The End For ISIS In Iraq . SEE ALSO: Iraqi bankers say ISIS never stole 0 million from Mosul banks. More "The Bottom Line" ». How chatbots could change customer service over the next 5 years.

ISIS forces took over four days to take a city just over 5.5 miles across. Former Saddam army officers and soldiers, barred from service in the new Iraqi army, began to fight for the Islamic State. ISIS continues to be viewed as extremely radical, even in the Arab world, and it is easy to see how

Fighting continued just outside the city. Gunfire rattled in the distance and pillars of black smoke spun skyward as Iraqi troops pursued fleeing militants north of Hawija. Col. Ryan Dillon, the spokesman for American-led coalition forces in Baghdad, said the militants were operating from a shrinking slice of territory.

Assuming Hawija’s outlying districts are finally cleared, the Islamic State in Iraq would be left with a string of desert outposts in the Euphrates River valley and the city of Qaim on the Syrian border. The group still controls significant territory in Syria.

But the militants never made much of a stand in Hawija. For the first week or so, commanders said, some fought back as government troops squeezed them from three directions in outlying areas. Trapped, they made a final stand in the city center. After three days of urban fighting, commanders said, the battle ended on Thursday.

Burned-out civilian vehicles, some upturned and others riddled with bullet holes, lay among rubble in the city center. Soldiers said many had carried Islamic State fighters.

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Sword-and-Sorcery Into Plowshares: Game of Thrones’ Anti-War Message. VIDEO. A view of the destruction in Mosul during the Iraqi government forces ' offensive to retake the city from ISIS . For now, the Iraqi government is celebrating the end of ISIS control of Mosul.

But virtually no destroyed military vehicles were visible, suggesting that militants in and around Hawija can no longer obtain the gun-mounted Humvees and armored troop carriers they used in Mosul.

Before the operation, Iraqi forces dropped leaflets instructing residents to flee. About 75,000 to 80,000 took refuge in outlying districts, according to Naji Ibrahim Hawas, head of the Hawija provincial council. Those residential areas seemed mostly untouched.

For civilians, who began to emerge at the city’s edge on Friday, the defeat of the Islamic State offered salvation after three years under the militants’ harsh rule. Like residents of other Sunni cities controlled by ISIS, they described public beheadings in the city square, people shot in the foot if caught with a cellphone, and beatings for such offenses as wearing dishdasha hems too low or beards too short.

“They beat me with a belt in front of my children — it shamed me,” said Raad Mohammed Jasim, 38, who said he was jailed for three weeks by militants who stole his sheep and car.

Abdul Basit, 21, who like Mr. Jasim remained in the Hawija district under ISIS rule, said he was shocked that so many militants had fled without a fight because they had seemed so terrifying and ruthless.

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ISIS terrorists were cornered in Mosul as Iraqi forces retook the strategic city in the north of the Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul last October and began the Zayn Malik fans go into meltdown over a Turkish actor who is the spitting image of the pop heartthrob so can YOU see the

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“Just seeing their faces and their beards made me tremble,” Mr. Basit said.

The sight of Shiite militiamen parading through a Sunni city did not seem to alarm many residents.

“They helped liberate us,” said Mr. Hawas, the provincial council leader. “We prefer anyone to Daesh,” he added, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

He was preparing to slaughter 30 sheep to thank government forces, including the militiamen. He said Shiite militia units will soon hand control of Hawija to local police and to Sunni tribal leaders.

From 2005 to 2007, Sunnis and Shiites fought a brutal civil war. In 2013, Hawija was at the forefront of a brief uprising that pitted Sunni gunmen against the Shiite-dominated government of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, then the prime minister.

Human rights groups have accused Shiite militiamen in liberated Sunni cities such as Falluja of executing Islamic State prisoners and civilians accused of supporting them. Several militants who surrendered to Kurdish forces last week said they feared execution if captured by Shiite militiamen.

General Aboda said all militants captured in Hawija were turned over to Iraqi military intelligence officers.

The military coalition in Hawija included Iranian-trained militiamen, federal police officers and local Sunni tribal fighters. They were backed by American airstrikes and artillery.

Mr. Hawas and other Sunni residents complained about the Kurdish fighters known as pesh merga, who maintained defensive lines a few miles north of the city. They said the overwhelming vote last month for independence from Iraq for the Kurdish autonomous region had undercut the fight against the Islamic State. The Kurds should annul the vote, many said.

There are fears that Iraqi forces will clash with pesh merga fighters now that the two sides’ front lines are closer after the fall of Hawija. Kurdish leaders and the government in Baghdad are locked in a tense confrontation over the vote, with Iraq threatening military and economic reprisals if the Kurds don’t annul the results.

“If they insist on their independence, then of course we may have to fight them,” General Aboda said. But he added that the police had been ordered by Baghdad to avoid any confrontation with Kurdish fighters.

“They told us not to provoke anything,” said another police commander in Hawija, Gen. Maitham al-Abbodi.

Despite the military triumph, not everyone was so sanguine about the end of Islamic State. Col. Kareem Aboud of a federal police SWAT unit, who was providing security for food deliveries to displaced Hawija district residents, said he was not convinced that the Islamic State was on the verge of complete defeat in Iraq.

“They’re like a cancer,” he said. “You can never declare them dead.”

Iraq: After losing Kirkuk, Kurdish forces pull out of Sinjar .
Iraq's Kurdish fighters have lost more territory in Iraq, a day after Iraqi forces pushed them out of the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk.In the town of Sinjar, commander of the local Yazidi militia, Masloum Shingali, says the Kurdish forces left before dawn on Tuesday, allowing Shiite-led militiamen who are fighting with Iraqi forces to move into the town.Shingali says there was no fighting and that the Kurdish forces "left immediately, they didn't want to fight."Town Mayor Mahma Khalil says the Popular Mobilization Forces, a predominantly Shiite militia coalition, is securing Sinjar.

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